Today’s post is a guest post by Ally from The Speckled Goat. She’ll be contributing several posts over the next few months. Enjoy!
Infertility has taught me many things.
I’m pretty sure I could write a series of How To books without a whole lot of effort:
“How to Take Your Basal Body Temperature While Staying 80% Asleep”
“How to Laugh So Hard that You Start Sobbing Uncontrollably” – thanks, hormones!
“How to Discuss Cervical Mucous in Casual Conversations”
“How to Lose All Your Facebook Friends by Discussing Cervical Mucous in Casual Conversations”
Infertility has also taught me how to take better care of myself, physically and mentally.
Reducing Stress and Saying No
I really like lists and plans and productivity. I like getting lots of stuff done and making people happy and taking on responsibilities. I do the jobs no one wants to do, no one has time for, or the tasks that people haven’t even thought of yet.
And it stresses me out.
When I started to see how my stress levels were affecting my cycles (a lot. Stress was affecting me a lot.), I began to understand that maybe, just maybe, I should let some of that go.
I’ve started saying “no,” instead of pushing myself to get everything done. I’m trying not to worry about the things I don’t get done at work, or about the laundry that didn’t get folded. I’m learning to leave work at work. I’m making time for deep breaths and brain breaks.
Taking Better Care of My Body
In high school, I pretty much lived on hot dog buns and crappy cafeteria salads. In college, Ramen Noodles were my jam. I never exercised, could easily eat my weight in brownies, and gained a concerning addiction to coffee. I weighed a good 98 pounds, which, at my height, was a little low, but still in the healthy range.
And then I developed PCOS and gained nearly forty pounds.
Guess what? I can’t eat like I used to.
I’m avoiding processed sugars and white bread, reducing portion sizes, and working on getting a little exercise in daily ( I really like Yoga with Adriene!).
I pretty much beat up on my body throughout my young adulthood… but infertility is showing me that I need to take care of myself physically.
Giving Myself Grace
Oh, this is a tough one.
For someone as perfectionistic as I am, someone with such high expectations of myself… giving myself grace is hard to do.
My emotions, I found, tend to go in a spiral of sorts. I start out doing fine- feeling confident and content. And maybe that lasts a week, or two. Or maybe even a month. But then I get a baby shower invitation, or someone makes an announcement, or I even see a dad pushing his two-year-old on the swings, and I hit rock bottom. Hard.
I’ve started to recognize my ‘sadness triggers,’ (BFN, anyone?) and I’m learning to treat myself gently. I don’t demand as much from myself. I allow myself to feel all the feelings- even if I know they’re irrational, even if I know that they’re mean or snarky or sinful.
I treat myself like I would someone who was grieving- from the way I self-talk to the things I avoid (like that difficult phone call at work). I even wash my hair more gently on those days.
I don’t let myself wallow. There’s a time for everything. There’s a time to sit on the bathroom floor and have a good, makes-your-throat-sore cry. And there’s a time to wipe your eyes and keep on living.
But I can’t do the living part if I don’t let myself do the crying part.
Infertility is not what I would have chosen. It’s not the cross I wanted to bear. It sucks. It has pulled me into some dark, dark times. But it’s also made me so much stronger.
This post is linked on on several blog hops. You can see them all here.
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